With the imminent threat of climate change and the UK government’s 2050 net-zero target, Sustainability has risen up most companies’ agenda’s in recent years.
Now is the time for action and businesses can not get away from their responsibilities as large companies are having to detail their plans for a low carbon future publicly.
Many companies are still struggling to get to grips with their sustainability plans and turn their aspirations into reality.
However, Procurement is quickly becoming a key stakeholder for organisations seeking to overcome their challenges with sustainability targets.
One of the key issues for many is simply a lack of knowledge. It is pivotal to close these knowledge gaps immediately. There is lots of content and market research available and it could be that there is a strong existing foundation of knowledge already internally within the organisation that can be expanded on or enhanced. If not, then external resource will be needed, be it advisory services or to recruit in the skills and experience required to drive your sustainability strategy forward.
Once you have the required skills and experience at your disposal, you can then begin to assess where you are and where you want to get to and begin to build a roadmap of how to get there. Whilst not easy, if you have the right people in place this sort of evaluation, analysis and planning should be fairly straight forward given the multitude of options and routes that can be taken.
However, the next big challenge is how to track and measure against your targets.
As we all know, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. The key here is that whilst you may not be able to track everything to begin with, you can focus on what is measurable and ensure there are robust KPI’s that are clear and well communicated. These objectives should be established as early as possible.
This way there is a baseline for improvements to work from. Nobody is expecting things to change overnight, and this will be a long-term transition.
Patience and perseverance will be needed and taking small early steps is a good start.
Having the right people, strategy and objectives is all very well and good, however, it is all irrelevant if you don’t have internal buy-in from your stakeholders and particularly at c-suite. It’s imperative to get this, again as early as possible and ensure constant and clear communication throughout so that everybody is on the same page and focused on achieving the goals.
Overall, sustainability is a huge topic with many aspects to it and it is easy to see how so many companies are struggling to get to grips with it or don’t rate their organisations performance when it comes to becoming more sustainable. Many don’t even know where to start.
The key is to keep it simple and try not to overcomplicate things in the early stages. Focus on what can be impacted and what can provide a high impact.
And then adopt a learn as you go approach, otherwise, you may end up in a lifetime of analysis with no action. Leaders will need to take ownership and to support organisational change and allocate budget to make their strategy happen.
With so many things going on in the world at the moment, it can be very easy to get distracted or make excuses. Sustainability needs to be at the top of the agenda and now is a time for action, not just lip service!
If you are having issues or need support when it comes to your sustainability strategy, do not hesitate to reach out to discuss the support options available with Elite Search Solutions
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